Shamaoma Musonda and John Sakala
29 December 2011
THE Zambia Tourism Board (ZTB) has been advised to urgently come up with a strategic marketing plan that would lead to sustainable and good performance of Zambia’s tourism.
And a local investor in Chingola has urged the ZTB to improve their sensitisation programme to earn more foreign exchange.
Private Sector Development Association (PSDA) chairperson Yusuf Dodia said Zambia’s tourism potential was well documented and that it was now time for the ZTB to set out a plan that would lead to a sustained high level performance of the sector.
In an interview, Mr Dodia said the growth of the tourism sector was key to Zambia which was on a strong economic growth path and that the authority entrusted to lead the tourism promotion needed to have a proper plan.
“Now that tourism has been rightly identified as a sector needing growth, the ZTB must now come up with a plan that would lead to the sector being one of the best performers in Zambia’s economy.
“A plan that would lead to sustained good performance from the sector and help in the economic growth of Zambia through job creation and bringing in of more foreign currency,” he said.
ZTB is engaged in aggressive marketing that has seen it look for collaboration with fellow tourism authorities across the continent to get more arrivals in the country with target for 2011 set at one million.
Mr Dodia said the marketing strategy should ignite a well-timed and coordinated growth in the sector for the benefit of the country.
He said the increase in the number of arrivals would not happen by accident but would come from coordinated efforts and plan since the sector had so much potential.
ZTB chairperson Felix Chaila said earlier that the varying tourism strengths of countries such as Namibia and Zambia needed to be packaged together to make it more attractive to attract tourists.
While Zambia’s biggest tourism strength the Victoria Falls has a target of less than one million tourists this year, Niagara Falls in North America attracts more than 300 million people a year.
In Chingola, BCL Import and Export director Clement Muyasani said the board should do more to attract local and foreign tourists because the current marketing strategies were not effective.
He said Zambians were opting to go out of the country instead of spending their holidays locally which could in turn promote the local tourist resorts.
Mr Muyasani said with the new brand identity ‘Zambia: Let’s Explore’, it was high time ZTB lured more tourists and record an influx of sightseers from South Africa and other parts of the globe.
The re-branding of ZTB, from a tourist perspective should help generate enough resources for the country and contribute positively to Gross Domestic Products (GDP).
He was happy that recently ZTB had been conducting sensitisation meetings in towns across the country for people to have the information of who offered affordable accommodation and lower viewing rates.
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